Now that 3*FSS have been ordered, from memory the following ships were included in the UK's 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan, but are not yet ordered, and as far as we know publicly, have yet to be budgeted for:
- River B1 replacement OPV's
We don't yet know what design any of these will use or where thy will be built. If they are currently unbudgeted, then will they be covered by future years budgets. Having sold Ocean, we are left with Argus, 2*Albions, 3*Bays - will the 6*MRSS replace some or all of these?
Can we afford any / all of the above ships unless the RN gets further funding? So we have a lot of unknowns, and that is without considering what to do anout the current River B2s and upcoming T31s.
For years the RN has steadily reduced its overseas operations as the size of the fleet has been slashed following various post-Cold War Defence Plans. The current mission of Spey and Tamar in the indo-pacific has been great in (re)building relationships with navies and nations, in some cases many decades since RN last visted. I have been critical of the RB2s in the past for being undergunned - perhaps this in a bizarre way has helped their current mission. Rather than parking a Gunboat bristling with weapons off their shores, the RB2s have excelled in softpower diplomacy, getting nations more favourably disposed to the RN and to to the UK in general. Surely it is better to stop a war from happening in the firt place rather than having to fight it??
I would extend the work that Spey and Tamar are doing and have the others cover East and West Africa, South and Central America. If we are serious about allliances and trade agreements such as Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), then we need to have a presence. Forgetting our allies Australia, NZ, Canada and more recently Japan, what counties like: Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
In that role I would keep the RB2s armed as is. But if tensions rise or we need them to take a more active role e.g. anti-piracy missions, then I would be happy with a modest uparming - maybe to a 40mm main cannon and 2*20mm secondary cannons, backed up by 4*HMG, and cheaper UAV and USV for ISR.
I have said before my wish to likewise see T31s upgraded. Adding some form of Sonar, upping to 24 CAMM, and adding 8*NSM containers (when moved from T23s) wold allow the T31s to be a proper GP Frigate and thus suitable replacemnt for T23 GP.
Re CSG, I have said before we can afford to have 1 on long deployment to say Indo Pacific every 2-3 times. And at other times I hope we can rotate them between short routine maintenance to hav them both on short deployments closer to home. As well as CASD and ASW especially in GIUK Gap and North Atlantic / Norwegian Sea, that will tie up the T26s and T45s.
Re LRG, I still hope we don't lose the capability to operate at least one Commando at Battalion level to Scandinavia. I agree that further afield we would be limted to maybe Company loevel operations from LRG(S) based in Oman, and otherwise Platoon level operation from other ships advance deployed. So I would envisage LRG(S) being smaller than LRG(N) and/or spread over smaller ships. I would have no problem if 3 or 4 of the intended MRSS end up something like the Vard 7-313 detailed by others in this thread.
I still think we need OPV smaller than the Vard 7-313 to concentrate on Fishery Protection and other low-intensity missions in the UK Maritime EEZ, both home waters and for British Overseas Territories. I wanted these to be smaller and cheaper than RB2s. We need to prioritise money towards medium and high intensity missions. These need to have good sea keeping and be able to outgun drup smugglers etc with small arms. So these OPV could be armed even 1*20mm and 2*HMG, couple of RIB's, and again any cheap UAV/USV for ISR.
So going back to the initial budgets for OPV, 6*MRSS, 5*T32, I would have no problem cancelling the T32, and use the money to restock ammo and pay for the uparming of the T31. I would like 5-6 cheaper OPV to replace RB1s. And would be happy if some of 6*MRSS budget was used for 3-4 Multi Purpose Vessels, whether the previously discussed 110m Sloops or the aforementioned slightly larger Vard 7-313.
That to me just leaves replacing Ocean and eventually Argus with the other two MRSS, but that is more for Amphib thread.